Home > T-Mobile allows a stranger to take control of a family's account
T-Mobile allows a stranger to take control of a family's account
If you have a T-Mobile account, you'll want to check your current bill and even go through some of your older ones after reading what happened to this family. The husband and wife were using a business account that the husband had set up, and the pair were the only authorized users on the account. Back in April of this year, the wife gets a text from T-Mobile notifying her that a new line and device had been added to the account. This was only the beginning of what turned into a nightmare for the couple.
Once the wife discovered that neither her husband nor their pre-teen daughter had placed the order, she called T-Mobile to complain. She noted that the carrier gave her a hard time at first because the stranger who accessed the account had used her husband's information to place the order which was for an Apple Watch and smartwatch service, both of which the stranger had charged to the husband's T-Mobile business account.
Check your current and past T-Mobile invoices
After dealing with several T-Mobile phone jockeys (which the carrier likes to call customer service), the wife finally was able to convince the wireless provider that a fraud had been committed. She asked for the address that the Apple Watch was shipped to, and even though she was an authorized user on the account, T-Mobile refused to give her this information. However, they did promise to cancel the line and remove the charge for the Apple Watch.
Let's flip the calendar ahead to July and once again the wife receives a notification from T-Mobile. The business account she shares with her husband is charged for another line and an iPhone 15. Both the husband-and-wife call T-Mobile and after speaking to four agents assuring her that she and her hubby are the only authorized users on the account, the fifth agent reveals that another person had been previously added to the account.
Even though allowing this random stranger to gain access to the couple's business account was T-Mobile's fault, the carrier refused to reverse the charge for the device and stop charging for the line until the iPhone 15 was returned. The excuse T-Mobile gave was that the stranger was technically authorized on the account even though the carrier had been told by the wife months ago that he was not an authorized account user. Additionally, the phone was shipped to Georgia and the couple lives in Pennsylvania; there was no way they could get the iPhone 15 back from a stranger they did not know, living in another state.
T-Mobile's failure to act allowed the thief to take things to a very extreme level
The only option that T-Mobile gave the couple was to file a police report and send an e-mail to the company's fraud department. This was done and guess what the couple heard from T-Mobile. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And this failure on the part of T-Mobile to take care of this issue allowed it to snowball into something worse. Yesterday, the stranger contacted T-Mobile customer service; at first, the carrier wouldn't allow the thief to make any changes. However, when he called again, he was able to verify some information and was allowed to access the account, and this time, the stranger took matters to another tier completely.
This time, the thief removed the husband from the business account that he himself had started. The stranger also added himself as an authorized user, and enabled international calling for the account. And the icing on the cake is that T-Mobile never removed the Apple Watch and the smartwatch service that the stranger charged to the couple's account back in April. The husband and wife, despite being told by T-Mobile that these charges would be removed, have been paying those charges despite being told by the company that they would be taken off the account.
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Is this T-Mobile's fault?
Yes. The carrier botched this up completely.
94.39%
No. The family should have been more on top of things.
1.72%
It's the fault of T-Mobile and the family.
3.89%
Normally we might suggest that the couple try to speak to the office of T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. But the latter has one foot out the door as he is leaving at the end of this month. The only problem he has on his mind is the 3.16% drop in T-Mobile's shares over the last five trading days. This dropped the value of his holdings by $2.5 million.
Another Redditor had a similar problem, and his response should be the action you take if something like this happens to you. "I was with T-Mobile, and they did something similar to me, and I had to complain with FCC (sic)." In other words, contacting the FCC often leads to a successful conclusion to matters like this.
Earlier today, the wife posted that a fraud ticket was submitted with the supervisor on Friday and she is supposed to hear from T-Mobile today. We will update this article if necessary.
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